This update adds approximately 94,000 new records and 40,000 new photos. The database is adding 216 new cemeteries along with updates or additions to an additional 129 cemeteries. This update brings JOWBR’s holdings to 1.95 millionrecords from more than 3,800 cemeteries / cemetery sections from 81 countries! (Cemetery Description files, maps and overview photos will be processed by the end of the month.)

I want to particularly thank Eric Feinstein who has been helping me to find and gain permission to add many data sets from around the world. In addition, without our volunteer transliterators, led by Gilberto Jugend, we would not be able to add the information from some very difficult to read photos.

Of particular note in this update are the following additions:

Hamburg, Germany. Thanks to Herr Gerold Helmts of the Jüdische Gemeinde Hamburg (www.jfhh.org) for more than 14,500 records from the Hamburg cemetery. More records will be added to this collection in the future

Berlin, Germany. Thanks to Bert de Jong who has been working on photographing and indexing the stones at the Weissensee Cemetery in Berlin. This update includes 7,200 records and photos. Bert also submitted records for other smaller German and Dutch cemeteries

Brody, Ukraine.

Thanks to Ami Elyasaf, Project Leader, Pam Weisberger, Gesher Galicia Project Coordinator, and their team of volunteers for submitting 6,200 photos and records from Brody’s new cemetery. An entire list of volunteers can be found from the Cemetery Description field within JOWBR

Miskolc, Hungary.

Thanks to John Kovacs, Project Leader, and his team of volunteer data entry and translators for submitting 6,100 records from the Miskolc Chevra Kadisha register. An entire list of volunteers can be found from the Cemetery Description field within JOWBR

Ontario, Canada

Thanks to Allen Halberstadt, coordinator for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Canada, Toronto’s Cemetery Project, for submitting and updating approximately 4,200 records from various cemeteries along with 850 photos. We also than Robert Lubinski and Kevin Hanit for their help with Ontario cemeteries

Magdeburg and Halle, Germany

Thanks to Max Privorozki head of the Jewish community of Halle/Salle who submitted approximately 3,800 records from 3 cemeteries in the towns of Halle and Magdeburg

Thessaloniki, Greece and Jamaica

Thanks to Michael Glatzer of the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem, publishers of two volumes whose records are in this update. Isaac Samuel Emmanuel’s, book "Matzevot Saloniki adding approximately 1,900 records from Thessaloniki and Richard D. Barnett and Philip Wright’s book (edited by Oron Yoffe), "The Jews of Jamaica, Tombstone inscriptions 1663 - 1880" added more than 1,450 records from 19 cemeteries throughout the island of Jamaica

Leeds, England

We wish to thank the Leeds UHC, BHH and Eitz Chaim Synagogues for permitting us to include approximately 3,000 records and photos from the Gelderd Road cemetery. An entire list of volunteers can be found from the Cemetery Description field within JOWBR

Algeria

Thanks to Bernard Haddad for submitting approximately 2,800 records from 4 Algerian cemeteries. Mr. Haddad is the president and founder of Mémoire Active d'Algérie (Active Memory of Algeria,) the association to safeguard and preserve Jewish cemeteries in Algeria

Bender, Moldova

Thanks to Yefim Kogan, Cemetery Project Coordinator for the Bessarabia SIG for submitting more than 2,600 records and photos from the Zagorodnaya Street cemetery.

Passaic Cemetery, New Jersey

Thanks to Mark Pollack for adding an additional 2,400 records from the Passaic Junction cemetery in Saddle Brook, New Jersey

Trebic, Czech Republic

Thanks to Lubor Herzan of the municipality of Trebic and the Mayor of Trebic, Mr. Pavel Herman. More than 2,300 records were submitted from information on headstones and from the burial register from the town

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Thanks to Jakob Finci, President of the Jewish Community of Sarajevo for access to more than 2,000 records from the Sarajevo Cemetery

King David Cemetery, Putnam, New York

Thanks to Gene Baumwoll CSW for adding an additional 1,800 records and photos from various sections of the King David Cemetery (Beth David Cemetery) which is part of the Rose Hills Memorial Park

Mishawaka, Indiana

Thanks to Mike Kring for submitting 1,600 records and photos from the Hebrew Orthodox Cemetery

Harrisburg, PA

Thanks to Rabbi Akiva Males of Kesher Israel Congregation in Harrisburg for submitting more than 1,500 records from the Kesher Israel Cemetery on 34th Street.

Whether your name or records are listed above, we appreciate all your submissions! Thank you to all the donors that submitted information for this update.

We appreciate all the work our donors have done and encourage you to make additional submissions. Whether you work on a cemetery / cemetery section individually or consider a group project for your local Society, temple or other group, it’s your submissions that help grow the JOWBR database and make it possible for researchers and family members to find answers they otherwise might not. Please also consider other organizations you may be affiliated with that may already have done cemetery indexing that would consider having their records included in the JOWBR database.

We will update JewishGen’s Memorial Plaque project before the summer conference. We currently have approximately 10,000 records online with an additional 10,000 to add. We’re still actively looking for additional files for the launch. Please contact me to find out more about this project and how you or your JGS can help.